If you want to sell cars, you need to market them. Except in Japan, say the Detroit 3. In Japan, it’s easier and cheaper to complain about closed markets and manipulated currencies than to waste money trying to sell cars. After the jump, you will find a list of automakers that will display their cars at this year’s Tokyo Motor Show. You probably can imagine who is not on this list.

2013 Tokyo Motor Show

Participants

Passenger Cars

DAIHATSU (Japan)

HONDA (Japan)

LEXUS (Japan)

NISSAN (Japan)

MAZDA (Japan)

MITSUBISHI (Japan)

SUBARU (Japan)

SUZUKI (Japan)

TOYOTA (Japan)

ALPINA (Germany)

AMG (Germany)

AUDI (Germany)

BMW (Germany)

CITROËN (France)

JAGUAR (U.K.)

LAND ROVER (U.K.)

MERCEDES-BENZ (Germany)

MINI (Germany)

PEUGEOT (France)

PORSCHE (Germany)

RADICAL (U.K.)

RENAULT (France)

SMART (Germany)

VOLKSWAGEN (Germany)

VOLVO (Sweden)

Commercial Vehicles

HINO (Japan)

ISUZU (Japan)

MITSUBISHI-FUSO (Japan)

UD TRUCKS (Japan)

HYUNDAI (Korea)

VOLVO TRUCK (Sweden)

For the third time in a row, Detroit automakers are not participating in the Tokyo Motor Show, held at Tokyo Big Sight on Tokyo’s Odaiba Island between Nov. 22 and Dec. 1. Understandably, they did not come during the dark days of 2009. But even when things improved, they were not back at the biannual show. German companies, such as Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes on the other hand will again deliver full court appearances.

As you can see, Tokyo will be a cozy show again, and full attention would be guaranteed, unlike in China, where you are one of a few hundred participants, and the place is so mobbed that people won’t get to your cars. But God forbid, what would happen if Japanese showgoers suddenly detect their love for Detroit iron and buy it? Can’t have that.

The list of the participants reflects genuine interests in making sales in Japan. Detroit is not interested, while maintaining loudly that they would be, if only those nasty Japanese would let them.

The Los Angeles Auto Show is exactly on the same days of the Tokyo bash, from Nov. 22 to Dec. 1. It’s one of those coincidences.

What BS FAILS to state is that the Europeans have SKIPPED the Tokyo Motor Show on a no. of occasions while they (and the American automakers) always found it worth their while to go to the Seoul Motor Show – hmmmmmm.

As for the allegedly manipulated currency: Shares in Ford and GM gained around 90 percent in a year. According to prevailing Detroit logic, where it must be cheating when prices move, those stocks must be highly manipulated.

Huh? You just don’t understand monetary policy and abenomics. It’s the STATED GOAL of the Prime Minister to END DEFLATION via aggressive monetary policy.

A side effect of this monetary policy (ending deflation) is that it devalues the yen. This is absolute fact. There is no debate. Now Japan denies that this is ‘currency manipulation’ because they call it a side effect of ending deflation. But make no mistake they are lowering the Yen. They know it. We know it. The whole world knows it – except evidently you.

Somehow you think this is an empty charge..

“In a unanimous vote, the bank’s board stuck to its strategy of expanding the monetary base at an annual pace of 60 trillion yen to 70 trillion yen, or $586 billion to $684 billion, through purchases of government bonds, commercial debt and other assets. ”

“He said that the central bank would continue to make large bond purchases to “keep up the downward pressure on interest rates.” He has also suggested that the bank would adjust the way it bought bonds in the market. ”

(NYT)

See the thing is I agree that the Japanese market is free of tariff barriers. And that Detroit is generally lousy at trying to sell to the Japanese (of course so is Kia and Hyundai).

You can say that the US has no excuse for not having a larger presence in Japan other then incompetence. That’s all fine. But to deny that they are lowering the Yen. That’s just stupid.

The women at the Chevrolet booth for the 1999 Tokyo Motor Show absolutely haunt my dreams and warped my already impossibly high standards for feminine beauty. True, booth girls are tasked with looking awesome, and they all did … but Chevrolet pulled out the stops that year. Trust me TTAC readers – it’s tragic that this commenting system doesn’t permit photos to be posted.

Given that MITI and the Zaibatsu are dead set against any American car manufacturer getting any sort of foothold in Japan, and whereas China is a comparatively booming market where American cars are desired and popular, why should American manufacturers even BOTHER with Japan?

If is not worth for Detroit automakers to compete in Japan: why complain about it in the first place?

They should say something like: “Japanese market is not worth competing into since it has very specific car needs which we currently don’t have products for, requiring a lot of investment to create a product worth for the Japanese. So we just import a few products” instead of “Japan is a closed market for American automakers, bla bla bla”

Because while part of it is cultural (Japanese do tend to support the home team, as it were) the fact that Japan demands open markets to export to while closing their own is a legitimate point, and just as hypocritical as American companies demanding Japan get the (intentional) red tape out of the way while demanding the U.S. retain the chicken tax.

And just because one side does it doesn’t make it OK for the other side to. Two wrongs don’t make a right, they just make people go buy Hyundai and Kia in frustration.

Nobody is more full of $H!T than an OEM’s marketing mouthpiece and union spokesmen. Of course unions are putting on a song and dance for their union dues. That’s what they do. Lobbying congress is no different. That’s when you have to burn a couple brain cells to see what the true picture is. So why should we listen to any of them? And what does their statements have to do with reality. Or the implosion of the D2 or 3?

When Hyundai and Kia start selling cars again in Japan then there could be a case against Detroit. I think the real reason is Japanese prejudice. or maybe VW quality so much better than Korean or American cars?

If you don’t make an effort, you’ll never succeed. At least that’s what my parents told me.

Japanese consumers in general prefer Japanese cars, just like American consumers preferred American cars in the 70s. Who knows, if the Japanese manufacturers had not made an effort to market and sell their cars, American consumers might still prefer American cars.

Strange….I was just in Japan. I saw quite a few Chevies. Even a Suburban. Particularly in Northern Japan. And they were not owned by US ex-patriots. I bet if GM actually marketed their cars, they might even sell a few more.

I cannot accept as a valid excuse the Tokyo and LA shows taking place at the same time. Are the US companies stretched so thin that they don’t have staff to handle two events? They only have one copy of all their new products?

What does US product have to offer in Japan, except perhaps to satisfy a niche market of drivers that desire to be dramatically nonconformist?

It’s time Detroit admitted that Japanese buyers as a whole just don’t like what they’re trying to sell over there.

American cars simply do not fit on Japanese roads. The japanese like their cars to be tiny and nice. The D3 make a couple of tiny cars, and a couple of nice cars, but nothing that is both. So VW Polos BMW 1 series, Audi A3 (which looks huge in Japan BTW.) are the main foreign offerings. Most Japanese would look at a Cadillac ATS like it had a third eye. The japanese are also intensely brand loyal, in the way americans used to be, and believe that the japanese make the best of everything. Japanes cars do well in the US because they have been designed to appeal to American tastes. The Japanese even created whole new premium brands so that they could sell the premium cars they already made into foreign markets. Perhaps if GM rebranded all their Chevys and Cadillacs as “GM” cars they might have a shot. The multiple brand thing is confusing to the japanese. They can’t understand why a company would put another name than their own on the thing they make. It seems dishonest and fishy to them.

Only Lexus is sold in Japan, and then in relatively small numbers compared to upscale Toyotas like the Crown. Acura and Infiniti models are sold domestically as Hondas and Nissans.

As far as width, I’d say it’s more preference than necessity. True some roads, particularly in cities, are very narrow, but that can be said of Boston and Philadelphia. Not that I would want to navigate them in an Impala either, but considering kei cars, which make up 2/5 of the market, are narrower than a Ford Focus it’s a tough sell. Perception is a much harder nut to crack than tarriffs ever could be.

Main roads are wide for sure, but our chaos city problem is, missing one corner and get adventure to jump into the next corner tends to end up by stuck to a narrow road with 3 meter width.
Japanese market perhaps have highest rate to adopt satellite navigation option on cars. we buy it because we don’t want to get stuck and create scratches and dents by hitting bicycles parked everywhere.

I hope you’ll realize driving a full size truck in Tokyo is not a good idea by examining the map in details.

It’s a whole other leveI. I live in New York and drive a BMW 5 series easily. Have lived in Boston too. If I lived in Japan I would drive a Kei-ish car no question. There is no American car I would consider owning in Japan. Even cities like Rome and London do not prepare one for the 3/4 scale-ness of older Japan.

haha, just kidding to bring out full size..
But this is not the situation just for the central Tokyo, most habitable flat geographic locations (= current industrial areas) has legacy of ancient roads paved way before automobiles invented.

@ccode81,
The UAW troll(Denvermike) will invent the most ridiculous excuses why his Full Size Pickup can do everything a Kei Van can do in Tokyo, he is paid to keep to advertise UAW built vehicles on forums and exaggerate their capabilities even to the point of absurdity..
The UAW is involved in virtually ALL US “Full Size’production except for the Tundra and Titan. They are in the process of trying to Unionize those workforces.
They are NOT Involved with the production of Midsize Pickups in NA. Obvuiously he is very negative about these.

@ccode 81
The guy thinks there’s a business case for the US to export full size pickups to Europe.

Why? Because the don’t know what they are missing.

He claims to have been to Spain several dozen times. I was just in Spain and the roads will not support full size trucks. Outside of the US and Canada only Australia and New Zealand will support such vehicles.

We won’t know until we find out. At least we know small trucks are a dying niche in the US. Yes full-size trucks wouldn’t appeal to consumers around the world like they do in the US. But who are YOU to say how big or small the niche market may be. And a niche market in a hundreds countries is something to consider. The dealer network is already set up and lots of countries have huge expanses of wide open country. And money to burn!

BMW didn’t set out to put a cheap BMW in every driveway, around the world. That’s what VW is for.

Just take anything that wildly popular in the their home country, The Beatles, Doors, Coca Cola, McDonalds, Nikes, Levis. There’s no guarantee they’ll find the same success everywhere else. But it’s a great indicator.

That link didn’t show much. Name a busy Medieval street that would stop a full-size in it’s tracks, but allow a mid-size to fly thru. I’ll google earth it. Even so, eventually you have to get out of your mid-size and hike the rest of the way. The same with full-size vans. How do people manage with those scary monsters?

I’m not very much interested to the debate of full size vs mid size thing.
From japanese urban resident perspective, we have very small occasion to carry big things, one phone call and sophisticated delivery service will come to door and carry my stuff with affordable fare up to 9 PM.
In chance I have to carry by my self, I can rent 2 ton truck for 100 bucks a so for 24 hours.

My point is anything longer than 4.7m length and 1.9 m width is a size to feel some kind of punishment in back streets.
Anyway let me introduce some samples .